Paul Revere Author Visits Lexington, 25 March

Before Henry W. Longfellow wrote “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1860, Paul Revere was remembered mostly as an early Massachusetts industrialist. He made a successful transition from heading a small workshop to supervising a factory.

Revere’s earliest products were handmade silver and gold utensils, much like those his father had made before him. At the end of his career, however, the Revere company was turning out big cast church bells, cannons, and lots and lots of copper sheeting.

The Revere cookware still marketed today (and the Revere stereographic cameras of the 1950s) wasn’t named for Revere after 1860 because he was a household name with patriotic connotations, like Sam Adams and Ethan Allen. Those products came out of the metalworking company he founded.

Robert Martello has written a new book about Revere’s business career, called Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise. This Friday, 25 March, he’ll speak about it as part of the Lexington Historical Society’s Cornelius Cronin Lecture Series. Prof. Martello’s talk starts at 8:00 P.M. in the Lexington Depot Building, and is free and open to the public.

Also in Lexington, the annual Patriots Day reenactment of shooting on the common is scheduled to be rehearsed on 3 April starting at 2:00 P.M; raindate is 10 April. I’ve heard this can be an opportunity to see the action without fighting against crowds or a rational sleep cycle. You can download the town’s official schedule of events on 16-18 April here.